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“Dance me to the end of love” (Cohen, 1984).
If we could view the interstitial spaces between the molecules of our human being, we would see the energy of love as the glutinum mundi. Yet, getting a grasp of love as the glutinum mundi is like holding mercury, which unpredictably fragments and coalesces when handled. Love as the glutinum mundi is coherent with our ideas of that which reconciles chaos and catalyzes wisdom and compassion, such as the Self, God, the Holy (numinous), or the energy that unwinds DNA. There are as many imaginations of love as there are stars in the Milky Way [1]. Whether or not we ponder love as a topic, we cannot live well without it. Love’s geography is mysteriously vast, varied, and complex. Paradoxically, it is simply that which glues our individual and collective bones together.
We are all, to some degree, preoccupied with love in a myriad of ways, both holy and perverse. Love is the most ineffable and eternally evolving archetype. Our emotional and physical necessity to experience the loving presence of another begins at birth and ends with death. Many spiritual traditions assure us we will be loved in the afterlife, and this helps us be less afraid of dying. Easily half of all songs, stories and other creative works are about love. Even denying that we need love speaks to a defensive and wounded preoccupation with it. Unbidden, the archetype of love actualizes through us, influencing our personal and collective engagement with it. “Love may summon forth unsuspected powers in the soul for which we had better be prepared” (Jung, 1966a, p. 101, para. 164). But our expressions regarding love remain woefully insufficient to articulate its mercurial, powerful, and transformative nature. “I tried to write a poem about our love, but my words only fell from the page back to god.” (Author’s journal).
Given the power of the love, prudence prevails in the presentation of this drama about love and transformation. It is a drama in the classical sense of drama—a portrayal of the spectacle between archetypal figures in such a way as to evoke a feeling response and catharsis. In this case, the drama is between love as the glutinum mundi and the heroic-ego in all of us who cries:
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin / Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in / Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove / Dance me to the end of love / Dance me to the end of love (Cohen, 1984)
A dance of the ultimate expression of love is this drama’s intrigue. It unfolds during the twelve hours from sunset to sunrise, in the realm of the dark and voluptuous unknowing, where rational perceptions and egoic machinations have no importance or influence. It happens in the realm of the archetypal feminine, where her wisdom, love, and power reanimate the souls of those who are soul dead. May you be one of those so touched by her.
[1] Milky Way: The galaxy that includes our Solar System. It appears from Earth as a milky band of light in the night sky formed by stars individually undistinguishable to the naked eye.